UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg warned the Security Council on August 13 that Yemen faces its most serious risk of returning to large-scale conflict since the 2022 truce, citing intensified military activity along frontlines and recent Houthi attacks in Ma’rib, Hadramawt and Mocha, according to Reuters. He also warned that renewed Houthi attacks on Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping risk pulling Yemen further into the regional confrontation already straining the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said on August 13 that the group had launched two drones at a Saudi Aramco refinery in Jazan, the second such strike in less than a week, according to Bloomberg. A Houthi military source called it retaliation for alleged Saudi airspace violations over Saada and Hajjah. Saudi authorities had not confirmed the strike at the time of reporting.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the council that more than half of Yemen’s population faces acute food insecurity, with six million at emergency levels, Reuters reported.
The frontline on the ground reflects the same regional split. The Iran-aligned Houthis face the National Resistance Forces, a UAE-backed faction under Presidential Leadership Council Deputy Chairman Tareq Saleh, in western Taiz. Grundberg’s warning underscores that Yemen’s truce is no longer just a domestic ceasefire but a fault line between Iran-aligned and Gulf-backed forces increasingly exposed to the wider regional war.
